Motivating citizens to vote and influencing their decision on who to vote for are critical parts of election campaigns, and “get out the vote” (or GOTV) technologies and techniques are used to motivate citizens to vote and to influence who they vote for.
There are currently two recognized categories of GOTV activity, that is: (i) Field Operations, which target likely voters, and (ii) GOTV Drives, which aim to educate and motivate the American public to vote. Each will be discussed in turn below:
(i) Field Operations: Field Operations are run by Campaigns and Organizations (such as political parties, labor unions, and grassroots organizations) with the purpose of Targeting Likely Voters. The first step of a field operation is to narrow the list of all voters to a smaller list of targets. The second step is to contact these targeted voters and “ID” them on level of support—who is a strong supporter, a lean supporter, an undecided, a lean against and a strong against. The third step is to communicate with the lean supports and the undecided via phone calls, targeted mailings, e-mails, and in-person door knocking to solidify their support (with the potential to bump up their IDed support). The final step occurs just before Election Day when all the strong and lean supports are contacted and reminded to go vote.
Selection of who should be targeted is critical to the success of a Field Operation. The primary factor is Voter History. For instance, a candidate running in the Democratic Primary would want to target Democrats that have voted in previous Primaries. Other secondary factors can come into play, such as demographics (a Korean candidate would want her targeting weighted in favor of fellow Koreans) and geography (a City Councilman running for Mayor would want his targeting weighted in favor of residents of his current district).
However, no method exists that provides a way of measuring voter history and assigning a number to it. Likewise, no method exists for characterizing and indexing the voting tendency of an entire household of voters, lists of voters, or clusters of voters.
(ii) GOTV Drives: The second category is what is commonly thought of as “get out the vote” (hereinafter “GOTV”) drives, or GOTV Drives. These are typically run by non-partisan, non-profit organizations and are comprised of television, radio, and print ads, public service announcements, and voter registration drives with the aim to Educate and Motivate the American Public to Vote. An example of a GOTV Drive would be the “Rock the Vote” initiative aimed at youth.
The last few years have seen an explosion of online Internet and E-Mail political activity. Existing technologies and techniques have proved effective for both fundraising and activist mobilization (such as volunteer recruitment and hosting events). However, these existing technologies and techniques have been entirely ineffective in educating and motivating the American public to vote. An example of this is the Howard Dean Presidential Campaign of 2004.
In addition, there has not existed any system that allows for the general public to view voter records including voter history, even their own. Voter records are public records, which are available at local and state Board of Election offices and that also contain private information such as birthdates, phone numbers, and addresses, including apartment numbers. This private information has been a barrier to providing these records online (or even through analogue means) to the general public.
With “raw” voter records being unavailable to the general public, this has in turn prevented a derived characterization or summary of voting history being made available to the public. More broadly, with voter records being unavailable to the public, this has prevented the development of Personal GOTV Drive technologies that would allow a citizen to create a voter list of friends and family and take responsibility to ensure that they vote, including for endorsed candidates.
Finally, there have been no systems that integrate new Personal GOTV Drive systems with existing Field Operations systems. This has prevented campaigns and organizations from fully utilizing the power of Internet and E-Mail technologies in the field operations.